How CA ARCserve rebuilt its webinar program to net more leads

CA ARCserve provides data protection and recovery solutions for small-to-midsize businesses and emerging enterprises. The solutions address complex and evolving business challenges that affect a sizable market. But three years ago, the company's live webcasts drew only about a dozen virtual attendees, said Stefanie Scott, program manager-marketing communications for the company.
“We would target a small part of our list and put together a product pitch,” she said.
The narrow focus of the standalone presentations did little to attract new leads or address the needs of prospects as they moved through the sales funnel. So Scott revamped the program to focus on thought leadership and best practices, and added live demos.
ARCserve now offers a series of live webinars each month, inviting prospects to first attend sessions that address general business issues, then progress to product-focused content, she said. Each series features in-house experts and can be viewed live or on demand. The company promotes the sessions to a broad audience, working with its network of resale partners to get the word out through social media channels and Web banner ads.
The marketing team also mines its database to identify and attempt to retarget leads that went cold during the recession. “We're going back to our database of people who engaged with ARCserve over the years and trying to re-engage them with key content about their current business issues,” Scott said. “Then we move on to take a deeper dive into the product once they are aware of us, and our position and how we can solve their problems.”
The goal is straightforward, she said. CA ARCserve wants to reposition itself—not as a producer of a specific product but as a trusted business partner.
Webinars and virtual events have become a valuable tool to promote that kind of connection because prospects increasingly turn to the Web rather than a salesperson for education, said Mark Bornstein, senior director-content marketing at ON24 Inc., the virtual platform provider that works with CA ARCserve.
“You can use webinars and virtual events for every stage of the buying cycle,” he said. “Thought leadership content and top-of-funnel exercises also serve effectively once you get people on a solutions track. You are able to give them specific, solutions-focused presentations addressing specific pain points and then even provide bottom-of-the-funnel activities, like demonstrations.”
The monthly webinars have become the cornerstone of CA ARCserve’s marketing program, Scott said. Since April, the company has produced 18 webcasts. More than 2,000 people registered for the events, and more than 1,000 attendees watched the events live. About 225 people viewed archived sessions on the ARCserve site.
“These [events] are contributing factors to either re-engage someone who may have been a lead before or someone who we're pushing through to a sale,” Scott said. “We're expediting the sales process, shortening that window.”